flower garden Archives

Perhaps you’ve made up your mind to create a garden that can be enjoyed by not only you, but by nature’s insects, birds and creatures too. Yet, do you have many gardening questions that need to be answered? Flower gardening for wildlife involves several different components. Most creatures like to live near a water feature, where they can get hydrated on those warm summer days. Birds are especially drawn to fountains full of circulating water. They also like to dwell near a food source. This means different things for different animals, of course, so you’ll need to do your research. Creatures also like places of shelter, such as rocks, bird houses or ground cover, for example.

If you’re considering designing a garden that will be a magnet for song birds, then you can include several special shrubs, annuals, perennials, native and cultivated plants to attract them to your garden. By cultivating plants from each group, you can offer seeds and fruit for all seasons to keep your feathered friends chirping year round. Make sure to provide a bird bath and throw seeds around in the wintertime to keep your bird clan satisfied.

In addition, consider the fact that, as well as your blooms, birds like trees for safety, nesting and refuge from the weather conditions. Often the trees even supply food including seeds, berries and sap. You can choose leafy trees including hazelnut, American mountain ash, chestnut, dogwood, red mulberry, black walnut and sassafras, in addition to evergreen trees such as American holly, red cedar, blue spruce, Douglas fir, white cedar, ponderosa pine and California juniper.

Flower gardening is an important source of food for sparrows, finches and other songbirds. You can try perennials like penstemon, tickseed, bee balm, goldenrod, cosmos, purple coneflower and four o’ clocks, or you may try annuals like sunflowers, asters, bachelor’s button, spider flower, snapdragons and cockscomb.

Garden guides also recommend planting shrubs and vines where birds can hide from predators and seek out food. Some tasty plants (like cherries and raspberries) are preferable to our flying friends, but they’re picked clean in a hurry. On the other hand, birds can be seen feasting all year long on elderberries, blackberries, huckleberries, chokecherries, bayberries, Oregon grapes, beauty-berries, silver-berries, blueberries, crab apples, cranberries and currants all year long.

If you’re flower gardening to attract butterflies, then you will need a place for the insects to gather water, to seek solace from the sun and predators, as well as sources to breed and feed. With the exception of monarchs and other migrators, butterflies generally don’t like to migrate too far from what they need, so if your yard has it all, you’re likely to keep these beautiful insects around. Garden supplies stores online sometimes sell butterflies from farms that you can let loose in your backyard once it’s all set up to jumpstart the process.

Everyone wants their property to look its best and one of the ways to do that is to enhance your landscaping. For some great suggestions on flower gardening and other ways to get the backyard of your dreams, check out the Landscaping Ideas site.

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A Guide to Growing Roses From Cuttings

Rose
Image by Gertrud K. via Flickr

You may want to learn how to grow roses but perhaps can’t afford to get them from a garden center. Or maybe you don’t want to waste time and money on rose bushes from such a source until you know for sure you have the right kind of green thumb. One way of finding out what color your thumb is may be by trying to grow a rose bush from a cutting. Do you have a friend or acquaintance with a rose garden? They might be willing to give you a few cuttings, so you can try the experiment.

You’ll have to pick your roses carefully, though, because not all types of roses grow well from cuttings. It’s likely some expert gardeners have managed to do it even with the difficult varieties, like hybrid teas. But if you still don’t know much about how to grow roses, or you’re not very experienced, then you will find varieties that simply will not grow by this method. Of course do some research to get specifics, but you can be fairly confident trying this with varieties like floribundas or miniatures.

You ought to do rose pruning in the first part of spring, taking three or four six-inch stems (or three inch stems for miniatures). Cut them on a slight diagonal, in the morning before the stresses of the day.

In the past, people knew how to grow roses with cuttings protected by Mason jars, and the practice still does the trick. So as soon as you have your cuttings, remove the lower leaves, with just a few at the top, and immerse the stems into a rooting powder. Then position them either into your garden soil or into containers of potting soil. At this point, place a Mason jar over each stem and water from time to time during the next few weeks.

When teaching people how to grow roses via cuttings, some recommend using containers with heating pads under them to encourage root development, though that may not be necessary if you’ve used rooting powder. In milder climates you should be able to grow the roses right outside, and may not even need Mason jars. Either way, it should take one or two months for the cuttings to become rooted. Once that has happened, and with continued research and rose care, you should be able to start creating a rose garden. You may discover your green thumb, and realize that this method of rose propagation is something you want to continue exploring.

Rose gardening can definitely be challenging to those that are not blessed with a green thumb. But anyone can grow rose gardens if they have the right tools and choose the right type of roses for their environment.

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{{en|A photo I took of some lupin (Lupinus per...
Image via Wikipedia

Flower gardening truly can be an art.

With each seasonal garden, you will come up with more ideas on how to enhance your backyard ecosystem. Many people enjoy reading about gardening tips on how to attract wildlife to their gardens. As a child, you may recall chasing yellow, orange and white butterflies, but perhaps you seldom see them anymore. Most of us remember our first glimpse of a tiny, delicate hummingbird or the first time a dragonfly touched our skin while we were floating on a raft at the lake. Certain plants are dynamos for luring these wonderful creatures to our back doorsteps. While you are free to incorporate whatever flowers you’d like into your garden, adding a few carefully chosen wildlife favorites will give you much more to gaze upon.

If you are considering designing a garden that will appeal to song birds, then you can include several special bushes, annuals, perennials, cultivated and native plants to attract them to your garden. By growing plants from each classification, you can provide seeds and fruit for every season to keep your feathered friends chirping year round. Make certain to add a bird bath and put seeds out in the winter to keep your bird clan satisfied.

In addition, think about the fact that, as well as your blooms, birds like trees for safety, nesting and shelter from the weather. Often the trees also provide food such as berries, sap and seeds. You can choose leafy trees such as hazelnut, American mountain ash, chestnut, dogwood, red mulberry, black walnut and sassafras, along with evergreen trees including blue spruce, American holly, red cedar Douglas fir, white cedar, ponderosa pine and California juniper.

Flower gardening is an important source of food for sparrows, finches and other songbirds. You can try perennials like penstemon, tickseed, bee balm, goldenrod, cosmos, purple coneflower and four o’ clocks, or you may try annuals like sunflowers, asters, bachelor’s button, spider flower, snapdragons and cockscomb. Garden guides also recommend planting shrubs and vines where birds can hide from predators and seek out food. Some tasty plants (like cherries and raspberries) are preferable to our flying friends, but they’re picked clean in a hurry. On the other hand, birds can be seen feasting all year long on elderberries, blackberries, huckleberries, chokecherries, bayberries, Oregon grapes, beauty-berries, silver-berries, blueberries, crab apples, cranberries and currants all year long.

Naturally, flower gardening to attract both hummingbirds and butterflies is ideal. Gardening tips suggest incorporating bee balm, California fuschia, salvia, columbines, daisies, sunflowers, marigolds, zinnias, peas, clover, mint, milkweed, parsley, violets and pansiesthe to increase your odds of keeping these creatures nearby. Nature stores also sell very effective red and yellow hummingbird feeders that these little winged beauties just love. Since hummingbirds can be pretty territorial, you might want to set up more than one in different locations around the yard if you notice the birds are coming to your home.

Your house may be beautiful, but if the surrounding area isn’t well maintained, it ruins the whole effect. Home gardening can make a tremendous difference in the appearance of your property. Visit the Landscaping Ideas site for some fabulous ideas to add class and style to your property.

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